Poll Books

Until the Secret Ballot Act came into force in 1872 voting in parliamentary elections was carried out in public. On polling days (voting often took more than one day to complete) the vote of each elector was entered into the poll books. Most manuscript poll books were destroyed in 1896, but many had been printed by local publishers.

The Local Studies Library holds poll books for:- 

• Yorkshire for 1741 and 1807  
• West Riding for 1809, 1835, 1837, 1841, 1848, 1859, 1865 and 1868

Registers of Electors

Also known as 'Electoral Rolls' or 'Burgess Rolls'.  The names are different but for most practical purposes they are basically the same thing.  However, many more people are included in the Burgess Rolls, than the Electoral Rolls. 

• From 1867, theoretically, every adult male householder who had been resident for a year could vote, as could heads of families lodging in unfurnished rooms with a rent of £10 p.a. or more - in practice it does not always seem to have worked like that!
   
• From 1884 all male householders, including most rural labourers, could vote.  Still excluded were heads of households in shared houses, adult males living with parents and soldiers in barracks.  
  
• From 1928 everyone over 21 could vote. Women aged 30 or over got the vote in 1918.  
  
• From 1969 every British Citizen from the age of 18 can vote. 

Registers held at the Local Studies Library include those for Wakefield Town/City from 1832 to 1974. The area covered by this definition varied from time to time, as adjoining areas were absorbed into Wakefield City:- 

Year	Areas absorbed into Wakefield City
1848	Thornes, Clarence Park, Holmfield Park, Westgate End, New Brighton, New Scarborough, part of Eastmoor, and the area between St John's and Newton Bar
1895	Borough Corner and Westgate Common, Eastmoor Road to Bar Lane - including Stanley Royd - and an area in the curve of the Calder off Denby Dale Road
1901	Alverthorpe and Flanshaw
1909	Sandal Magna
1921	Lupset
1936	The rest of Eastmoor
1951	Kettlethorpe

Also available are the registers from 1974 onwards for the whole of Wakefield Metropolitan District, including:-

• Knottingley
• Pontefract
• Castleford
• Featherstone
• Normanton
• Hemsworth
• South Elmsall
• South Kirkby
• Horbury
• Ossett
• Stanley

These lists of people entitled to vote were, and still are, published annually (with exceptions eg: in times of war).  

Registers for other parts of the West Riding up to 1974 may be located at West Yorkshire Archive Service (tel: 01924 305980) - please note that this collection is incomplete.